Logged in to the game for the first time! 
I guess we haven't discussed the amount of land tiles here (OH showed it in the first screenshot, but I overlooked it): 5720 tiles. For 25 players. 229 per player. That's a lot.
It's way too early to make any conclusions, but if that amount of land is immediately up for grabs, early warfare is unlikely going to be a thing and people can play sandbox until knights etc (I'm exaggerating a bit of course). Anyways, as we get more scouting info we should definitely keep this data point in mind and try understand the map and its dynamics better.
Another thing worth noting is that the map is 53.5 % water. What was the circumnav limit again? I seem to forget that always.
I guess we haven't discussed the amount of land tiles here (OH showed it in the first screenshot, but I overlooked it): 5720 tiles. For 25 players. 229 per player. That's a lot.
It's way too early to make any conclusions, but if that amount of land is immediately up for grabs, early warfare is unlikely going to be a thing and people can play sandbox until knights etc (I'm exaggerating a bit of course). Anyways, as we get more scouting info we should definitely keep this data point in mind and try understand the map and its dynamics better.
Another thing worth noting is that the map is 53.5 % water. What was the circumnav limit again? I seem to forget that always.